Here Be Dragons
by GeorgieInTheSky
Summary: Phan. I apologise for how completely not okay this is, I cried when I wrote it. I'm sorry, please forgive me?


Dear Friend,

He tried, he really did. I can promise you that, every endeavour of Philip Lester's was met with an upmost determination, as I'm sure you're already aware. I am aware that this doesn't change the facts, that what is still is, but I think that is important to remember he never gave up.  
I miss him. It is a futile action, that of missing, but we have what we have, which no longer includes Phil. I love him, present tense. I'm sure you were already aware of that fact, as was everybody apart from himself it would seem, but whether he felt the same will never be known, and that, I think, is what hurts the most. More than seeing him retreat into his shell, the monsters in his mind tearing at him from the insides until he just…broke. There isn't another word to describe it. He was hollow, without his batteries just a figure, breathing, existing, but not living. I tried. But in the end, I couldn't find the right pieces to fix him, complete his puzzle. All the king's horses and the kings men, couldn't put Phil together again.

Neither you nor any of our other friends has visited for a while, so I feel that it is important I inform you of his deterioration into this state. I wish that I could tell you exactly when it started, but only thinking back on it now do I notice the initial signs. His unwillingness to go outside, his fear of leaving the house. His speech became rare, and when he did speak, it was quieter, more reserved, less personal. He often fidgeted, uncomfortable, but he would never tell me what bothered him. It was his absence from YouTube that I first noticed. I asked him about it after three or so weeks of there being no new videos on his channel, and he just shrugged and told me he'd get round to it soon. It was then that I realised something was wrong, for his videos and pleasing his subscribers was something that he cared about and never spoke of with such disinterest. I sat him down and asked him what was wrong, and he assured me he was fine, that nothing was bothering him, that he'd just been feeling a little ill lately. So I chose to believe him, dismissing the niggling voice in the back of my mind, my gut telling me that he was lying, pushing the thoughts to the back of my head and trusting him.

A week or so later, I heard him mumbling in his sleep, so I went in to check on him. His sleeping body was curled up, as if he was clutching something invisible, and he looked so vulnerable that I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest. The thing that struck me the most was his passport on the pillow next to him, shoes by the side of his bed, packed bag next to them, fully dressed. He was ready to run. Why would he need to run? Come morning, he could disappear. If he was quiet, I'd never know where he'd gone. If I hadn't looked now, I'd never know he'd been planning it. Poof. He'd be gone. In a puff of smoke. I went back to bed, too wired to sleep, my mind playing tricks on me, with every creak of the floor or gust of wind forcing me to check that Phil was still sleeping, still here. The next morning, I asked him if he'd been planning on going anywhere, and he just replied "Why would you think that?" I said nothing more of it.  
Some days it feels like you can't win, no matter how much you do, how much you try, whatever you say. A couple of days after I'd managed to convince myself that Phil wasn't going anywhere, things started to get worst. He just slunk around the flat, looking so defeated that it felt like someone had taken a blunt pencil and thrust it through my heart, twisting and wiggling it until it completely punctured me, and I felt it all the way through my body, down to the sick feeling in my stomach, up to the sudden sharpness in my brain that kept tabs on his movements. No matter what I said to him to try and cheer him up, it seemed like he'd lost the fight, and in doing so, lost his hunger to live. He was like a corpse, pale and cold, aimless. I told him that I was always there for him, to which his only response was a slow and silent tear from the corner of his left eye. I reached up and brushed it away, and led him to the sofa, holding him until he fell asleep. He looked peaceful in sleep, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that felt off. I didn't sleep that night. I watched over him, whenever he flinched at something in his dreams, I would mumble that it was okay, and he appeared to relax again. And the next day, he was fine.

Everybody has secrets, all with our deepest, darkest, that we'll never confide, never share with anyone. Phil's was that he wasn't as strong as he acted, and we both knew it. Mine that I love him so much, although since I have shared it with you; I suppose that it no longer counts. I tried hundreds of different ways to coax his problems out of him; surprise, begging, silence, affection, but nothing worked. It was eating me as his monsters were eating him, and when I tried for the 216th time in the space of six weeks and three days to understand what was wrong, he broke down and cried. Frail arms encircled my waist and clutched at my shirt desperately, as I felt his tears soak into my shoulder, leaving his mark on my skin. I whispered to him that it was okay, that he didn't need to hide from me, that I was here and I loved him, but nothing worked. I don't think he was listening. When he stopped crying , I picked him up and tucked him into bed, making sure he was warm, but he didn't sleep. He was watching me. I sat cross-legged on the end of his bed, and asked him what was up. He just shook his head, but pointed at the curtain and asked me to close it. I did, and as he drifted off, he mumbled something about the stars being after him, and that was the last I heard from him. And again, I didn't sleep that night.

Days passed, and it was becoming possible to mark how thin he was becoming. I could have mapped it out, his frame becoming skinnier and skinnier as I became increasingly worried. We were heading into the unknown, and my mind was screaming at me that it would end badly. It was like old mapmakers that filled in the gaps of unexplored territory with magical beasts that had three eyes and talons longer than a man's head, simply because there was no way of knowing what would greet a man who ventured there. Here be dragons. Here was my own personal dragon; Phil's self-destruction. I begged him to eat something, made him his favourite soup, but he refused. His eyes began to sink into his skull, his rapid deterioration wearing away at his outside as well as his inside. And still I continued to love this skeleton of a man, battling against himself, while both were losing.

From then on, things worsened quickly. Phil was rarely sober, and although miserable soaked with alcohol, it became a hundred times worse when he dried out. His leaving the house had gone from occasionally to never, and I sat there and watched him destroy himself. I was running out of options. My desperate mind rummaged through its depths in an attempt to come up with a useful solution, but it drew a blank. The obvious thing to do now, looking back on it, was to tell someone, but it never occurred to me. We were both wrapped up in our suffering; his, the battle with his internal demons, mine, watching him lose. The only positive to his frantic drinking was that he started to tell me the details of the fight he was waging against himself. "They're all out to get me." He whispered to me one evening, after he'd made me close the curtains. "You've got to listen to me. Everything. They're all coming for me." His eyes were wide and fearful, so I nodded in reassurance, urging him on, but he said nothing else.  
"Who is Phil? Who's coming for you?" I asked him, voice hushed so I wouldn't frighten him further.  
"The monsters." I tried to get more information out of him, but he just shook his head and rocked himself backwards and forwards, muttering to himself, too quietly for me to catch a word, often taking deep swigs from the bottle of god-knows-what he clutched in his hand. The territory we trod on became even more dangerous. Here be dragons.

I became scared to shower, anything that required leaving him on his own after I found him in his room one night, scratching at his arm. I gently pulled his hand away, and he looked up at me, blinking a few times before he realised what was happening. "Oh." Was the single world he uttered, and it still keeps me up at night, wondering what he meant by that. I cleaned him up, his nails bloody and torn, washing the blood from his arm, grateful that he hadn't managed to do too much damage before I'd found him. I kept an even more careful eye on him then, never leaving him alone, except when it was absolutely necessary. It became harder and harder to delude myself that everything would be fine, that it was all in head how bad things were getting, that I'd be able to fix things. I was just too scared to face my dragon.

I never had the choice. No, scrap that, I had the choice, I just didn't take it soon enough. I never battled my dragon, because it beat me too it. I was too busy hiding in my cave, battling with myself about the decision to move out, take action, but he'd pounced on me before I'd made up my mind. All of the sleepless nights had taken their toll, and one night while I was acting my usual position of guard I must've dozed off, because I was awoken by strange noises. I realised after I shook the sleep from my system that they were coming from Phil, so I crawled over and stroked his hair, asked him what was wrong. Everything was off. His eyes were glazed and distant, as if they couldn't focus on me. "I won Dan." He whispered, the smile that twisted onto his lips sending a chill down my spine, coupled with his eyes, it was completely terrifying. "The monsters are dying." His eyes fluttered shut and he giggled, but then turned over and retched.  
"Phil.." I whispered, tears filling my eyes and I reached out to hold his hand, but it was wet. I didn't need to check. It was blood. He dropped the razor he'd been grasping, looking up at me, pride in his eyes. "I did it. I beat them. They can't get me anymore." I grabbed his hand, placing the other one on the side of his face, my thumb resting near the corner of his eye, pressing our foreheads together.  
"You're not going to die Phil. You hear me? You can't die…" I choked, the build-up of tears all released at once, but he just carried on smiling.  
"They can't follow me anymore. Don't you get it? I beat them. I won." Phil's voice was becoming raspy, the pills doing their work. He'd missed the main artery he'd aimed for when he sliced through his arm, but it didn't matter. It all reduced the number of seconds left on the clock. I felt my dragon mocking me as I sobbed, the pain in my chest more than just lack of oxygen. I was gasping as Phil's breathing became lighter, his eyes opening, and they settled on my tear-soaked face with astonishing clarity for a dying man. "I beat my dragons Dan." He whispered, with it taking his last breath. I took my hand and rubbed it against my face to dry my tears, a useless feat as they just kept coming, in the end just resulting in his blood on my face. I had no idea that there was even room for that many tears in a body. I leant down and kissed him, the only one I'd ever get, the faint taste of his blood mixed with my tears tangible, but it didn't matter because he was gone. I dragged myself from his rooms, thinking about his last words; "I beat my dragons, Dan." That made one of us.  
We live another day, but now we have to live for one more of us. Phil Lester was a beautiful soul, inside and out, and nobody will ever compare to him. I wonder often if I could have saved him, but wondering does nothing except destroy the souls of the living. I ask that we all remember him as the truly wonderful man that he was, and not the scared ghost he became in his final months. All I hope is that he is at peace, without his dragons.  
Yours truly, Daniel Howell


End file.
